Sine wave

Hail,
Not that good today. See, I was going to post something very cheery and upbeat about, say, some of our chickens, or the lesser-known ductless glands, and I actually started writing yesterday, but it seems that may have been a case of premature exultation.

Because today, and yesterday, I feel ever so slightly bad. Disturbed sleep, that pressure in the chest, that rage and self-loathing, that panicked feeling.

Now this is not cause for panic. Some of this is situational. Without going into specifics, a few things have gone on in the last few days. Some have been social - a close friend of mine is going out with a nurse who works in the Florey ED. He rang up and asked us to come over a few mornings ago, so we popped over for a chat - it was two in the morning, she was in her night-dress bouncing rocks off my car roof and shrieking in Italian as he scurried from the house, wiping blood from his mouth, worldly possessions in a plastic bag - the usual thing.

Dead set. Two o'clock in the morning. Don't ask why he couldn't drive his car. There is a reason, but you'll have to watch our appearance on Jerry Springer for it.

(The next morning I got up late, by the way. It was my birthday and I was delighted to see four messages on my phone. "How nice" I thought. "Someone remembered". And all four messages were from her, fifteen minutes of bile from her - easy fifteen minutes - of drunken diatribe about him ("a diseased loser"), me ("a psycho loser") and Sarah (too many cats, didn't keep the house clean enough).

And about half way through her ululations there was warning - what others might call a threat - telling me to forget about going back to Florey ED because she was going to tell them all about the overdose and the detention order).

This is why gun control is a good idea.

So, there was that, which was actually rather unpleasant. Then there is going back to work at the Addiction Clinic, whereat I am apparently still topic du jour, on Thursday. I am going back part time, and I will probably spend a lot of time hiding in my office while everyone talks about how guarded, paranoid and isolative I have become.

I wonder if I can bribe someone to come up with a new scandal, or photoshop someone in carnal congress with a frog or something.

Plus I am starting to study for the primary, and I am realising that had I not been knocking back tricyclics like there was no tomorrow, in an effort to make sure there was none, I could have registered for the exam, sat it in March and maybe even passed it. As it is I have to wait until September, by which time I will be so damn sick of physiology, pharmacology and maybe anatomy that I won't. Meanwhile everyone else I know, smarter, younger, less weak, moves further ahead.

Anyway.

I am not yet depressed. A month ago I was depressed. Now, from some ways of looking at things things are actually worse in my life - socially, professionally, etc. - but I don't feel as bad. That's why depression is a mental illness - you don't see things as they are, you see them as you are, and if you are depressed, then you see things in terms of guilt, fear, confusion, hopelessness, etc.

Plus, this kind of stuff happens. Fluctuations. Meanderings. The sine wave. You don't fix everything overnight. You gradually emerge from the penumbra.

And I am fairly determined, and fairly sure, that I will not get that depressed again for a while. I have made significant changes in my life - soon I will be working in the ICU, for example, and some part of me thinks that this low-paid, high-stress, shift-work kind of thing is "real medicine", and I feel better about it. And I've made some painful changes in my life, people I miss a horrible amount, and I'm seeing Dr Tesla frequently, and taking the medications, and doing all the right stuff. And I may well ring and see if I can move the next appontment closer.

Because, to be honest, last time scared the crap out of me. It's still weird being in a part of your life for which you have no plan. And I awoke and found me here, that kind of thing.

Here, by the way,



is a picture of a haggis and her fank of young from improbable.com. I find this kind of stuff amusing.

Anyway. Two days until I start work at the drug and alcohol place, a fortnight or a month until I start ICU. Three days till drinks with the comic book geeks down the pub.

Thanks for listening,
John